THE AHWATUKEE REPUBLIC
A publication of The Arizona Republic •A Gannett newspaper
Printer Friendly PageREFLECTIONS ON SAFETY
Inventor has a backup plan
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Ahwatukee resident Lowell Martinson is reflected in mirrors he invented. Called ScopeOut, they are designed to eliminate blind spots behind vehicles. These are made to be mounted on the trunk of a car. |
Ahwatukee designer works to eliminate blind spots |
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By Betty Beard Every vehicle has a blind spot that can be deadly. And now that vehicles have gained so much weight, ballooning into SUVs and big pickup trucks, those blind spots have only gotten bigger. They cause motorists to miss seeing vehicles or back into fences, walls, bicycles – and even pedestrians or children. Last month, a Mesa father accidentally ran over his 20-month-old daughter after she darted out of the house towardthebackofhisChevrolet Suburban, according to police. She fell under his rear tire and died. Ahwatukee Foothills resident Lowell Martinson hopes to eliminate such tragedies and blind spots with a set of mirrors he has designed and expects to have on the market in the fall. The ScopeOut mirrors are designed for sedans and SUVs to give drivers a look behind their vehicles. “What they are is an extra pair of eyes,” he said. “They give you a 180-degree view before you back up.” About 53 children have been killed in the country this year in back-over deaths, according to Terry Dittmer, a spokeswoman for Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based organization. She said vehicles don’t have just blind spots but blind zones. And, according to Consumer Reports, they can range from an average of 14 to 50 feet behind a vehicle, depending on the size of the vehicle and the height of the driver. Martinson, a former Midwest high school history and industrial arts teacher and varsity basketball coach, has always liked to think of products. But before this, the only product he had manufactured was a toy similar to paddleball that came out about 30 years ago. |
“Like any inventor, I’ve got a drawerful of ideas,” he said.
About four years ago, he began thinking about those big SUVs and how difficult they are to back out of driveways. Also, a motorist in a small car parked between two SUVs has to back out of a canyon. “When you back out, you are totally blind,” he said. “And it’s hard to find a parking space without being near SUVs.” Working at his Ahwatukee Foothills home, he first played around with mirrors stuck to cardboard to figure out the best placement and curvatureofthemirrors. Later he developed clay and Styrofoam models to get the shape. He had to figure out how to synchronize the ScopeOut mirrors with a vehicle’s three standard mirrors to eliminate blind spots.
Also, the mirrors have to be attached to a vehicle. The ScopeOut for a car sits on the back trunk, with two angled mirrors facing the front. For SUVs, minivans and other large vehicles, he devised a pair of mirrors that fit inside, near the rear side windows. He also wanted an adhesive that would be strong but still enable the mirrors to be removed if a driver wanted. He settled on one produced by the 3M company. Martinson has several patents on the devices. There are other aftermarket products but they are generally either rear view cameras or back up sensors, according to Consumer Reports. To find a manufacturer, Martinson looked on the Internet, searching for a company that made sensors that alert drivers to people or things behind them. That’s how he found Sense Technologies Inc. of Grand Island, Neb., which also makes a backup sensor called Guardian Alert. The suggested retail prices of the ScopeOut mirrors will be in the $90 to $100 range. |
Martinson hopes the product
will be in stores in the fall. Meanwhile, Sense Technologies
is taking advance orders through www.sensetech.com or
480-474-4309.
“I wanted something for the masses that everyone can afford,” he said. Martinson is working with the company to help sell and market the product and has taken the title of sales and marketing director for ScopeOut. He said he would also get royalties from the sales. “We feel like it’s really going to make a difference,” he said. WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE CAN HURT YOU Vehicles have blind spots, or zones, behind them that can range from 5 to 51 feet, according to measurements conducted by Consumer Reports magazine. Researchers put a 28-inch traffic cone behind a number of vehicles and measured how far away it had to be before a driver could see its top. They took measurements for drivers who were 5 feet 8 and 5 feet 1 and found that the blind zones are shorter for taller drivers. For example, the blind spot for a taller person a 2004 Toyota Prius would be 7 feet. For a shorter person, it would be 14 feet. The distance of blind zones for other vehicles:
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